USA nGT: Birmingham

finally .. back on the podium :)
slept trough the Euro race.. so i said what the heck .. i'll just woke up at 5AM for the US one ..
hard race but probably one of my best too
sorry for Bekas .. but as Jackie Ickx in The Speed Merchants says .. "What a wonderful fire"

Man I just cannot get through a r2p event I guess. About 20 minutes in I slide into a wall and tried to limp back to the pits but my motor died and wasn't able to make it to my crew all the way down the pit lane. OH well

Grats podium ... Well done condu ..

first stint was ok, was just chilling in 4th behind maciej not being able to really race him, and ryan was incosistent behind me, so wasnt really bothering me..

I was unlucky enough to be spun out in the second stint by and on the charge Eric which really broke my concentration (cheers for slowing to let me back passed, sportsmanship), kept making silly mistakes after that because it just allowed Maciej and Tom and Condu to close right up after such a nice gap was opened after pits :(

When i did pull myself back together, i was lucky enough to get passed tom, and maciej... But just couldnt find the pace to catch condu... Last lap he was held up by mark and almost allowed me to make a move .. if only we had one more lap!!

Grats

That is a tough track. Not the best place for me to decide to start running the Ngt series again. Placed dead last, but had no incidents with other drivers at last, even thoug a few off's.

Blew a tire with 14 minutes left while making up space between me and 16th, bit went NO CHANGE on the fronts by mistake, which left me leaving the pits with a flat tire in dead last. Had to pit again. CRAP!!! BUMMER!!!

Could have been a couple positions better had I not made that mistake.

But that was a very fun and challenging track. If I was discourteous towards anyone, please PM me. Tried to stay predictable for you fast guys - everyone other than me. But as the rules reccommend, I don't leave my line if I don't have to.

Great, great job gents.
Thanks for a fun race!

I have to say that it was a very nice race apart of that i wasnt able to finish because my engine blew while it was only two min left to the end and i was running third. Looks like my bad luck in gtr continiue. I wasnt really able to fight Eric and Claus they were a bit faster so as the race progres i new that only third is possible. I had some good fights with Conduruta and Heinz as they were going similar pace to mine. I have to say that this is a really nice track but unfortunetly there are no place to overtake other cars. During the race i tryed to do it only once and almost crash. Congr to Claus and all the podiums great job guys!

Grats To Claus and the Podium,

I wasn't expecting much considering this was my 3rd race in a Porsche and 2nd time ever seeing this track and first of this configuration.

Race started off hectic, I got a good start but soon after T1 somebody was lagging terribly, I had to back off as I nearly drove thru the person twice, the first 20 laps I just tried to find a rhythm and keeping the pressure on Daniel, we exchanged positions twice b/4 the pit stops, I pitted first took everything on, didn't chance the rubber, as I exit Daniel puts me a lap down, then he pits next lap, I put my head down to try and get him exiting the pits and my lap was good enough to make it happen, then with 8 to go I tried to get cute and smooth all at the same time entering T2, went real wide and opened the door for Daniel who was in tow, we went bumper to bumper for several more laps until I accidentally hit 1st gear in T4 and looped it allowing Daniel an easy ending. That was a blast.

Cya next time

Cheers

Not a pretty one for me! Probably didn't help that my first lap at the track in the RSR was in qualifying, using a Brno setup for lack of anything better. And it sure didn't help that it ran out of gas after 4 laps! Duh... So much for qualifying, at least the race would be long enough to make up some ground. Figured I'd try for a top ten and be glad if I could make it.

Got a slow start from 18th but avoided any trouble, and gradually worked my way into it. Was soon up to 15th and looking for a way past my teammate John when we had a bit of contact going into the hairpin. No harm done it seemed at first, but then I got clocked from behind due to losing my momentum avoiding John. Turned me around into the armco and I lost a bunch of time and five spots, rejoining in 20th. Just one of those things - nothing to do but chase from that point, so I did.

Had run a full tank and mediums, not knowing how much fuel would be needed, so at about 20 laps in and running around 13th, it was tires rather than fuel that brought me into the pits. I'd had a few moments that really chewed the tires up and they were pretty much shot.

Came back out in around 16th and was moving forward bit by bit, when we came up on Mark who was leading. I figured he was rejoining after pitting and was hoping to use him as a pick to help me get by the cars ahead, but it went a bit pear-shaped. He was just ahead of me when we encountered Don, who was limping back to the pits on a puncture. It was right before the T9-10 chicane, and he went on one side of Don I and the other. That all seemed fine until he slowed way down in the chicane for some reason, much more so than the previous lap. Since I was right behind it caught me out as I'd been expecting only a light lift. I couldn't check up enough, so I got into him and spun him. Sorry Mark! He didn't seem to get any damage which was good, and from looking at the results it looks like he hadn't pitted yet and probably had shot tires. He pitted that lap, so other than the unwelcome tap from behind and a bit of lost time no major harm done. Hope that's the case, but I still hated that.

Kind of had to get collected after that, but finally settled down and made up some ground. Caught John again and snuck by when he made a small mistake, then saw my other teammate George get bashed by Darren just ahead. Was determined to uphold the team's honor, so I got after him hard. Bit too hard as I dropped a wheel off exiting the last corner and looped it into the pit wall, flatting the left front. Bad spot to do that, since it meant a full lap crawling back to the pits and losing all hope of a decent finish. Almost made my goal of a top ten, but no dice.

Congrats to the podium, and again apologies to Mark for the bumper.

Damn I am so pissed I missed this event :(

Dog came in the house wagging her tail all over, jumped in the kids lap and was bleeding from the tail. Blood all over the house, ran to the vet, got home at 25 minutes past the hour. Launched the game only to find I was too late :(

Well at least the dog is okay :)

Hope I still have a chance to get the championship, was pretty much a lock until this happened.

I was actually having a fun race even if I had to use the RS with not much setup time. I was about 1.5 seconds faster in the RSR.

Well my race was fun until someone decided they wanted to try to end my race early with some bizarre pass attempt in T13 going up and over the hill -- there are very few people that can pull that off clean, and this person wasn't one of them. So after he caused a major pile up (8th-11th) and appeared to never lift even after the contact (maybe he was trying to turn me back around, I don't know), I got myself corrected only to be turn around again and into the wall this time at T15.

Too bad, til then Samuel and I were having some fun racing, very clean side by side giving each other a lot of respect. Samuel was faster, but it was for position and I was not doing any aggressive blocking, just racing hard.

So after the double contact, I just tried to salvage the race.

Poor qualifying but the race result was pretty much what i could hope for with the Modena , race was progressing steadily and i had some good chases going on. Like Rob already said on his post there was some nice side by side racing and fair driving, but unfortunately there was some unnecessary aggressions from some driver and i think both Rob and me got our share of it.

Talking about contacts i have to say that i'm beginning to get very worried about my own driving lately , on almost every race in last few weeks i've been in i've managed to bump or nudge someone and it happened again.

Closing to T1 there was some typical accordion effect and i got caught by it , gave Jeff a little nudge and at the same time i got bumped behind.

Unbelievable pinball effect took place but somehow everyone could keep their noses going into the general direction and it looked like everyone survived with minor cosmetic damages.

Not saying that it was all my doings but i'm afraid that i put the things in motion... :| Apologies to all involved and kudos for keeping it on the track there.

Hopefully i can get out of this new bad habit soon , track manners have been always very important to me , but lately for some reason or another there has been way too much close calls and minor contacts :( .

Congratulations to CJ for the win , looks like it was a close race with Eric...well done mate.

Grts to Eric and Conduruta too for the podiums and thx all for the race.

Cya in next one , hopefully it will be contact-free... :)

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Samuel